Rebirth

4. Early Blossoming

Mingxia let out a sigh and strolled around the house, bored. Unlike her dear sister who has classes packed back to back everyday, Mingxia had little to none, due to her angering all the teachers in town with her obnoxious behavior when she was young. Mingxia smiled as she remembered those times.

From childhood she played around with boys and did dangerous activities such as climbing walls, trees, hiking, playing with knives. Back then she was free and experienced true freedom. So when she was asked to weave beautiful designs on handkerchiefs and draw cute birds she would utterly fail. Because of this she received many negative comments about her, everyday she would hear others say how barbaric she is, how she should have been born a male and such. She hated whoever that said this, who gave them the right to judge her? She was just acting like herself and was being herself. She was depressed for a while but after that she decided that, why not act barbaric? why not act like a boy? So whenever she had to attend classes for females she would purposely aggravate the teacher and provoke them until they quit their job.

She didn't care since she hated being forced to do something. 

That fact has not been changed, even now she refused to be forced to do something against her will. It wasn't until later on when she met Ching that she forced herself to learn these lessons. How naïve of her to think that he will like her if she was more feminine and spent countless nights learning to weave, draw, dance and such. 

She would remember when her fingers were bleeding from playing the Guqin but she forced herself to continue. Although her fingers hurt she was happy. Happy, yeah she thought she would be happy and maybe even happier when she finally was wedded to Ching but that day never came. 

Never. 

Now she hated herself for that, she hated how gullible and naïve she was back then. She arrived in front of the plum blossom trees located in the courtyard and remembered that this was Ching's favorite flower.

'They are small and fragile and yet they are beautiful and strong.'

'Just like you.'

She grimaced and looked away from these orchards, she can't believe she had said these childish words to Ching before. She cringed at the thought and walked away but was stopped when a sudden gust of wind blew towards her bringing in a wave of plum blossom petals at her. Her maid rushed forwards with a towel but she waved her hand to signal she didn't need it.

She picked up a petal and let it ride with the wind.

"Small and fragile against the wind but strong against the cold."

Ironic.

She gave a sad smile and walked away into another part of the courtyard. She saw that in this courtyard the flowers are still in a bud like stage. She walked over and gently touched the white bud and smiled.

"What is this tree?" She asked her maid.

"A hawthorn tree, Lady Mingxia." She replied with a bow.

"Hawthorn." She murmured the name and gave a rare happy smile.

As soon as she smiled the bud opened to show the precious flower. Her maid gasped, the trees in the courtyard began to blossom and a gust of wind blew some of its petals up into the air and cascaded down on Mingxia. Mingxia smiled and twirled around as the petals fell on her dress and on her hair. The early blooming of the hawthorn trees caught the attention of the nearby servants and they rushed over to see the sight since these trees are meant to blossom only in another month and a half.

When they arrived at the scene they were struck by the beauty in front of them, their mouths dropped when they saw that the tomboy lady could be so beautiful. Of course this miracle event did not only catch the attention of the servants, but Ching as well. He followed the servants and arrived at the courtyard to see the sight. He was struck by how beautiful Mingxia was, the white petals dotted her pale green dress and her ebony black hair. How much more can she surprise him?

Mingxue was also alerted of this and came in time to see the Mingxia and Ching's reaction to her sister. She didn't miss the redness on his face and the happy smile on his face. This smile is different from the other smiles he gave before, it was held a certain kindness and happiness that he never gave her. She bit her lips, unable to bear seeing anymore of this, she quickly walked back to her room with pools of tears in her eyes. Her maid had a face of worry and pity on her face as she ran after her lady. 

When Mingxia stopped twirling she noticed the large audience standing in the corridors. She was confused for a bit but her eyes narrowed when she saw that Ching was standing among the servants staring at her. She turned her head and walked away not bothering to dust the white petals off of her.

Having nothing to watch anymore the servants went back to do their jobs and Ching looked at the back of Mingxia. That night his head was full of Mingxia, in the shower of white petals, like a goddess from the heavens.

His heart began to beat in a steady rhythm whenever he thought of Mingxia.

'What am I thinking about? I can not forget my goal.' He reminded himself but no matter what he thought to himself he could not get her image out of his head.

'What's wrong with me?' He questioned himself as he tossed and turned in bed.